Dragonforge

by James Maxey

  Bitterwood found himself concurring with the judgment of the pig. He welcomed this fate. It seemed a very light thing, to be carried off by air, unremembered, unmourned.

  “Take care of Zeeky,” he whispered before the world spun in a whirl of white embers, then turned black.

  Chapter Seven:

  Magical Gifts

  A misty rain veiled the mountains, hiding Zeeky’s ruined village. Zeeky gazed out from the shelter of one of the caves overlooking Big Lick. It had taken hours for her and Jeremiah to drag Bitterwood to the shelter. Killer was too wounded to carry anyone, though he could limp along. Poocher sat beside her, watching her intently as she used Bitterwood’s kit to start a fire. The logs they’d dragged up to the cave were damp. The flames from the kindling licked the bark, causing the logs to sizzle and put out fumes that were more steam than smoke.

  She checked Bitterwood’s bandages one last time. Jeremiah had found scraps of unburned blankets in the rubble and they’d used these to bind his wounds, but she was frightened by how much blood he’d lost. He was burning hot, and his breathing was shallow and raspy. She wished she knew something more to do.

  Finally, with the fire putting out at least a little heat and everyone in safe from the drizzle, she asked, “What happened, Jeremiah?”

  “For a couple of years, the menfolk have been whispering about the new kind of demon they were seeing in the mines,” said Jeremiah. “Big copper-colored serpents with a hundred legs. But the demons were afraid of light; the men kept mining, they just needed more lanterns than before.”

  “I know that. I heard Papa talking to Uncle Silas about the demons,” said Zeeky. “But why’d they attack?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jeremiah. “They just showed up in the middle of the night and dragged everyone out of bed. I tried to fight but the demons were too strong. The demon just got hold of me. There were men with them who tied me up. They carried everyone up to Dead Skunk Hole. I was slung over the back of one of the demons, but there was some slack in the ropes holding me. I wiggled loose and ran like a jackrabbit. Didn’t look back to see if I was followed. I hunkered down in some bushes for better than a day. Then I took off running for Big Lick to see if anyone was left. I guess one of the demons also came back to look. I thought sure I was a goner when I heard it coming up behind me.”

  “You think Mama and Papa are still alive?”

  “I reckon,” said Jeremiah. “I didn’t see nobody get killed. Wonder what them demons want us for?”

  “I’ll just have to go up to Dead Skunk Hole and find out,” Zeeky said.

  “Zeeky, you saw that demon. It ripped up your friend and hurt this big dog something fierce. You’ll get eaten alive.”

  “No I won’t,” said Zeeky. “The serpents aren’t demons. They’re animals. I could make out some of what it was saying while it was fighting. I bet I could talk to one. Animals won’t eat me if I tell ‘em not to.”

  “Yeah,” said Jeremiah. “You did talk that ol’ bear out of eatin’ Granny.”

  “Told him he’d only get indigestion,” said Zeeky.

  “But these long-wyrms ain’t natural,” said Jeremiah.

  “It ain’t natural that I can talk to animals,” said Zeeky. “I’m not scared of things just 'cause they ain’t natural. I’ll just go into the mine and look around some. I’ll take Poocher. You stay here with Mr. Bitterwood and Killer. Keep the fire going. Fetch them some water from the creek when they wake up.”

  “All right,” said Jeremiah. “I know I ain’t going to talk you out of it. Just promise you’ll be careful.”

  Zeeky nodded but didn’t actually say the words, so it didn’t count.

  It was daylight when Zeeky lit out for Dead Skunk Hole. She soon arrived at the sturdy wooden ramp that led up to the entrance. Fog hid everything more than thirty feet away. She held the rail for balance on the slippery wood, as Poocher crept along beside her, looking wary.

  “Guess this is it,” she said to Poocher as they reached the entrance of the mine. The gaping hole in the mountainside looked like a giant mouth looming in the mist. It had a faint wet skunk atmosphere drifting out of it. She gave Poocher a scratch under his bristly chin as she knelt to gaze into his dark eyes. “Not too late to turn back if you want. I’ll understand.”

  Poocher snorted and twitched his snout, indicating he wouldn’t abandon her.

  She stepped into the mine and looked around. The entrance was huge, big enough for an entire army of dragons to take shelter. All around were carts and picks and lanterns, equipment the miners used in their daily chores. The mines had been worked for centuries. Her Papa used to say that the mountain was almost hollow now. Yet, each time a vein of coal would play out, a new vein would be discovered, a little deeper down, a little further in. The men complained it took a full day to walk to the current vein they worked. The miners labored in five day shifts. Zeeky couldn’t imagine spending so long away from the sun. No wonder all the men always looked so tired and haunted.

  Zeeky lit the oil lamp closest at hand. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked. Long, jagged shadows stretched out against walls blackened by centuries of lantern smoke. She stepped further into the mine, away from the pale, fog-filtered daylight. Poocher stayed close by her heel. She walked several hundred yards down the main shaft when she reached her first obstacle. The shaft split into five different tunnels. A wooden elevator, designed to be powered by a team of mules, sat in a shaft that hinted at even more tunnels beneath. She wished the mules weren’t gone. She could have asked for help.

  “Any ideas, Poocher?”

  Poocher roamed over the floor, sniffing. He spent several minutes at the entrance of each tunnel before letting out a grunt.

  “Good job,” she said.

  Poocher snorted a thank you and trotted ahead. She followed, her eyes straining at the shadows. The white patches of Poocher’s hide grew increasingly gray. Was Poocher getting dirtier, or was the lantern getting dimmer? She tried to adjust the wick. The light brightened briefly, but as she fiddled with the lantern she could hear a sloshing of what could only be a few teaspoons of oil. She suddenly realized why the lantern had felt so light. It was her first time using a lantern. She’d watched her father use them, and was pretty sure she knew how to refill it. Her father said there were oil barrels all through the mine. Had she passed one yet? Had there been one back near the elevator?

  She turned around.

  The lantern flickered, the glass darkening with sooty smoke. She started to run.

  Everything went black.

  Brown gunk covered the marble floor of the grand hall of Chakthalla’s castle. Here and there in the muck, bright shards of the broken stained-glass windows that had once lined the hall glinted in the firelight. This room was vivid in Jandra’s nightmares—it was the room where her throat had been slit. Some of the nastiness on the floor might be her own decayed blood, mixed with rain and rotting leaves that had blown into the abandoned room. Here, she’d watched the sun-dragon Zanzeroth gut Vendevorex and leave him for dead. This was the room where she’d learned the truth behind the biggest secret of her life—that it had been Vendevorex who’d killed her parents, for no other reason than to prove himself to Albekizan.

  Despite her terrible memories of the place, she’d known the castle held rooms large enough to shelter Hex. They’d been only a few miles away when the weather became too dangerous to continue their journey by air. Once the fogs rolled in, flight was a foolish risk.

  Hex was curled up near the fireplace at the rear of the room, slumbering. His belly gurgled as it digested the young buck he’d swooped down upon and killed earlier. He’d eaten most of the buck raw, hooves and all, but had saved Jandra some meat from a haunch. She’d roasted it over the fire and had her fill. Jandra would have joined Hex in sleep, but, oddly, despite her full belly and the fact she’d barely slept in days, she wasn’t even mildly tired. Vendevorex had seldom slept. He’d needed no more than a few hours each week to remain alert. W
as this another side effect of the helmet?

  Jandra passed the time by reweaving and altering her clothes, doodling with the physical qualities of the fibers. She’d altered the color of the fabric, changing it from black to a red shade resembling Hex’s hide. She’d adjusted the fit of her loose mourning clothes until they clung to her like a second skin, though not too immodestly. From just beneath her chin down to her toes, there was no hint of exposed flesh save for her fingers and palms—even the backs of her hands were hidden by a red, feathery, scale-patterned lace she’d created. Her breasts were modestly concealed by a leather vest she’d crafted by replicating the molecules of leather in her shoes. She was sufficiently occupied with her newfound talent as a mental seamstress that the ghosts of the room didn’t haunt her.

  Unfortunately, the same wasn’t true of Hex. His sleep grew fitful. His jaws clenched with rapid snaps, as if he was biting at some unseen foe in his dreams. His claws flexed and twitched. Suddenly, he jerked his head up, his eyes open wide, as he shouted, “No!”

  Jandra reached out and placed a hand upon his hind-talon.

  “It’s okay, Hex. Just a bad dream.”

  Hex stared at her, confusion in his eyes. He shuddered, and released a long breath. “I was dreaming of the contest of succession,” he said.

  “Oh,” said Jandra. The contest of succession had pitted two of Albekizan’s sons against one another in a ritual hunt of human slaves. The victor had had a chance to challenge Albekizan in combat for the throne. The loser had been castrated, and sent into a life of servitude to the biologians. Jandra could see how such an event could lead to unpleasant dreams, even thirty years later.

  Hex rose to his hind-talons, stretching his wings, shaking off the effects of sleep.

  “Everyone expected me to win,” said Hex. “But the slave I hunted drowned while swimming the river. It took three days for his body to be discovered. The human my brother hunted broke his leg falling from a tree within sight of the palace. His howls of anguish made him easy to find. Dacorn tried to console me with talk of destiny. He said that fate required someone else to wear the crown.”

  “Perhaps there’s truth to it,” said Jandra. “No one expected Shandrazel to become king. And now, he may be the king that brings an end to kings.”

  “Destiny played no part in this,” Hex said. Now that his limbs were awake once more, he crouched down near the fire, his legs beneath him, his wings folded against his body. In this posture, with his long serpentine neck, he resembled a giant, scaly, blood-red swan. “Life is essentially random. Shandrazel is king by chance alone. Bitterwood killed Bodiel, then my father. No guiding power put him on the throne.”

  “These things aren’t random,” said Jandra. “Bitterwood wanted revenge against your father because your father took his family. Things happen for reasons. Our lives are entangled with the lives of those around us.”

  “Just because our lives are tied together doesn’t make us puppets. We’re free to cut our strings.”

  “There’s a poet inside you,” Jandra said.

  “Nonsense,” said Hex. “Poets seldom have any meat on them. I’d have to be starving to eat one. “

  Jandra smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sun-dragon make a joke before. Most always seem so serious.”

  “Why do you assume I’m not serious?” Hex said. Then, he winked at her. “I decided long ago that life’s absurd. If you don’t develop a sense of humor, it will drive you mad. Especially in this part of the world.”

  “What’s special about this part of the world?”

  “Why, the noise, of course.”

  “Noise?” said Jandra.

  “The song of the mountains,” said Hex. “Though we are some miles distant, I can already hear whispers of the infernal melody. They may have caused my unpleasant dreams.”

  “I don’t hear a thing,” said Jandra.

  “Humans have always been deaf to the noise. It’s a low-pitched dirge that drives some dragons to insanity. Fortunately, it’s still faint. If the windows of this room were intact, I doubt I would hear it at all.”

  “Hmm,” Jandra said. “I want to try something. Can I touch your ear?”

  “If you wish,” said Hex, snaking his head closer to her. The ears of sun-dragons were saucer-sized disks just behind the jaws. The sheer size of the ear meant they could hear certain sounds that eluded humans. She gently traced the edges of the smooth disk. With the increased sensitivity of her fingertips, she could feel a faint vibration. Hex wasn’t imagining things. The noise was real, and coming from the direction of the fog-draped mountains. What caused it?

  “I might be able to help you,” she said. “Vendevorex taught me that sounds travel through air like waves across water. You can neutralize sounds with a counterwave, just as you can disrupt ripples from a rock thrown into a pond by throwing in a second rock.”

  She dipped her fingers into the pouch that hung from her belt, grabbing a fist full of the silver dust. These tiny machines were the key to her control over matter. Right now, however, she needed a bigger machine. The silver in her hand changed from dust to long metallic threads. The shimmering strings coiled into the shape of a concave disk the size of her palm. It pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat. The remaining threads braided through the air, forming a long silver chain that draped down to the floor. A moment later she was done. The firelight danced upon a silver amulet. The necklace that held it was no thicker than a human hair.

  “Put this on,” she said. “Let’s see if it works.”

  “What is it?” Hex asked, extending his fore-talon.

  “It’s an amulet that emits a frequency that neutralizes the sound you’re hearing. Most of the things I make with the dust only exist a second or two, and draw power from ambient heat. This should be a stable construct, but it will need to be warmed by your body to keep working.”

  Hex slipped the chain on. The amulet rested against his breastbone, just beneath his throat. He cocked his head, tilting his ear toward the broken windows above.

  “I don’t hear the mountains anymore,” he said. “Let’s hope your magic dust doesn’t run out.”

  “It won’t,” said Jandra. “It’s self-replicating and self-assembling. I drop raw materials in the pouch from time to time—iron nails, sand, the occasional bit of gold. I charge them with sunlight, and the machines draw everything else they need to function out of the air. With a little care, it will last forever.”

  “With so much power, why are you a servant of Shandrazel?” Hex asked.

  “I didn’t think I was,” said Jandra.

  “Since Vendevorex served my father, I assumed you would serve my brother,” Hex said.

  “When I was younger, I dreamed I would grow up and be Bodiel’s personal wizard. He was so clever and elegant; I would gladly have devoted my life to him. I like Shandrazel. I think he means to make life better for humans. Still, it’s difficult to overlook the fact that most dragons accepted Albekizan’s dreams of genocide. It would be difficult to swear my loyalty to a dragon, even one as visionary as Shandrazel.”

  “So you’ll serve humans instead? Perhaps this young Bitterwood should he become the human king?”

  “I most especially won’t be serving young Bitterwood,” Jandra said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life. I haven’t had much time to consider the matter. It wasn’t so long ago that Vendevorex made all my decisions for me. I studied what he told me to study, and we traveled where he decided to travel. It’s still sinking in that I’m the only one in charge of my life now.”

  “We sun-dragons believe that no son is truly grown until his father is dead. I, too, lived my life by my father’s choices rather my own.”

  “Then you know how I feel. What are you going to do with your life?” she asked.

  Hex fixed his eyes on the fireplace that warmed them. He studied the dancing flame with a long and thoughtful gaze before answering. “Somehow, I would like to change the world.”

&
nbsp; Jandra thought this sounded like a noble, if broad, goal.

  “Hopefully for the better,” Hex continued, “but I’ll take what I can get.”

  Zeeky placed one hand on Poocher’s shoulder, holding her other hand in front of her as they crept toward the entrance, guided by Poocher’s infallible sense of smell. Even blind, he knew where they had walked. When they got back to the entrance, she would grab every lantern she could carry, and this time she’d make sure they were full. She’d even let Poocher carry one.

  The mine was full of odd noises. Water trickling down some unseen stream. A distant moaning, like wind passing through a tunnel. The echoes of Poocher’s hooves as he shuffled along. Her own stomach grumbling.

  Then, ahead of her, the sound of something she couldn’t identify, a scraping, scratching, clicking noise. She stopped. It sounded like claws upon the stone, drawing closer. Poocher tensed, suddenly frightened.

  “Is someone there?” she asked.

  The scraping noise stopped. Now she could hear the deep, slow breathing of the beast ahead of her.

  “H-hello?” she asked.

  “Hello,” said a voice. It sounded like a man, but not someone from her village. The accent was one she’d never heard before.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “My name is Adam,” the man answered. “You must be Zeeky.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “The goddess planted you,” Adam answered. “I’ve come to harvest you.”

  Zeeky was confused by the man’s response, but her focus shifted to the beast that accompanied the man. It was drawing closer. Its hot breath washed over her like humid wind, carrying the odor of dead things. Then, the wind shifted direction as the creature took a long sniff. The beast was only inches from her. Something damp gently flickered across her cheeks. She scrunched up her face, recognizing the wet thing as the creature’s tongue exploring her features, tasting her. She reached out and stroked the beast’s nose. It was hard and smooth and cool, covered with individual scales the size of her palm—it felt like the same sort of dragon that Bitterwood had slain. The beast flicked its forked tongue across her fingers. She could tell the creature meant her no harm—it was merely curious. From the location of the man’s voice, she assumed he was riding it, which meant it was tame.